D&D 5E October Playtest: Yay or Nay?

[Chris_Nightwing]

Time to get a poll up and running. First impressions only, are you heartened or disheartened, or have you no heart at all?

 

[gyor]

Disheartened, this was something I was looking forward to and its so poorly done in soooo many ways with giant steps back, honestly they should scrap the third packet and start over.

 

[Osgood]

I've been pretty disappointed with the playtest materials so far, but this new packet seems to have a lot of great improvements that I really like. Now, if I can just convince my group to give Next another shot...

 

[Salamandyr]

I probably shouldn't have read it last night with low blood sugar. I tended to magnify the problems, while the positive things didn't register with me as all that positive.

Reflecting on it in the cold light of the morning, with my stomach wrapped around a bowl of oatmeal, the game seems a lot better.

 

[howandwhy99]

I see a lot of tentative stuff still with trying a few things here, pulling back a little there. I wouldn't think too much is carved in stone at the moment. Especially with the designers a few jumps ahead in their own design processing.

Maybe it needs to be pointed out that some things disappear to keep the playtesting focused on what the designers want focused on for awhile.

 

[B.T.]

While I see a number of improvements, I think that the game is rapidly becoming too complicated.

 

[Teataine]

While I see a number of small fixes to rather obvious problems from the previous packet, overall I am massively disappointed.

I literaly went from "best iteration of D&D ever" to "I don't want to play this".

Sure, I'm overreacting, but stuff like the new Two-weapon fighting rules make me so blargh.

 

[kerleth]

I'm rather disappointed with a lot of what I've seen, but there are a few things I like.

I prefer the previous rogue and cleric, but I like how removing some of the their class abilities allowed them to be put into specialties for anyone. Like the thief hiding and seeing in the dark becoming the hide in shadows feat.

I greatly dislike the change to minor spells at first blush, but I'm withholding judgement till I get a better look. I do realize that tying them to tradition allows for tradition that don't grant at-will spells, which is an option that some have been clamoring for.

I would prefer sneak attack to be more circumstantial and powerful. This option just makes it the poor man's deadly strike. That's okay since they are for different classes (though I'm not a huge fan of this approach), but I would prefer perhaps deal double the expertise dices rolled result but make it harder to pull off.

The previous cleric was more flavorful. Just let channel divinity also include turning undead as a default along with the deity/domain based ability.

I'm reserving final judgement till I play. Also making it a point to not fill out the next survey till I've gotten a decent chunk of experience with this newest system.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I really liked what they had done with the magical items.
I thought the maneuvers for the fighter looked ok.
The Rogue maneuvers looked too similar to the fighter's.
The monsters to-hit bonus looks just too low.

 

[ren1999]

I like the healing options. This is a step in the right direction.
But looking at these spells leads me to believe people don't have a clue as to what direction they are taking them.
Does it really have to be that hard? Magic Missile mentions no saving throw doing 2d4+5 damage automatically. Somebody's low level character is going to die without getting a chance to save if I give any monsters Magic Missile as their spell. How many times do I have to say it. AUTOMATIC DAMAGE EVEN HALF DAMAGE IS WRONG.
What is a magic attack bonus? Why does it increment every 5 levels for clerics?
What is a weapon attack bonus? Why does it increment 4th, 9th level for fighters?
Why are we going back to complicated tables?
Why don't we just simplify all these bonuses into something like level bonuses that 4th edition had.